The Used Child, CH 37 (Patreon)

It lifted off silently and in a straight line. Tristan smiled. Alex was being cautious, which was understandable. Tristan had warned him not all the components were an exact fit. The hover leveled off and, before it started forward, there was a barely perceptible shudder. Alex would have felt that. It was the best he and the boy could do to make a stabilizer designed for a ship interact with a hover.

He squeezed the boy’s shoulder and smiled. “You did good work.”

“I just helped.” Still, he beamed.

“You are a great helper.” The boy wouldn’t take unearned praise. He did only help, doing what Tristan indicated, but he took directions well, his hands were steady, and he was attentive to details. His small stature also did make reaching the further components easier.

The boy proceeded to take the plates and wash them. Alex had eaten in a hurry, saying he had to make up the meetings he’d missed due to the damage. He was trying too hard; a mask didn’t need all that work. The groundwork within any database someone might search to verify its existence. After that it was all in how the mask was used.

“Hey, Buddy,” Tristan called as he joined the boy. “How about we do something special today?”

The boy stiffened, then went back to washing. He was adaptable, but sudden changes weren’t something he took easily. Things had been regimented at the academy; the little changes that happened came with plenty of warning. He took a cloth and dried the plates the boy had set aside.

“Like what?” he asked tentatively, still washing.

“Well, you’re pretty good at identifying stuff in the forest now. What do you think if we spend the day out there? It would be a fun way to spend the day.”

“A test?”

“Does thinking of it that way help?”

“At the academy, they always tested us to make sure we learned.”

“Makes sense. But out here, the universe does the testing. It sends challenges, and you need to use what you learn to beat them.”

The boy looked at him. “No one ever explained what the universe was like before. At the academy when I asked about what it would be like out here, they told me not to ask useless questions.”

“No such thing as a useless question.”

He placed the last of the cooking tools on the drying rack. “What happens if I fail one of the universe’s tests?”

“It can be painful, I won’t lie. It’s not looking at your work through a mirroring site. The pass-fail conditions are set within the test itself. Like if you pick the wrong plant to eat, you’ll get sick. That’s a fail.” He paused, not for effect—that was wasted on the boy—but considering if he should say the next part. The boy deserved to know everything about the universe in a context he understood. “Buddy, if you aren’t careful, some of its tests can kill you. It isn’t a teacher, it doesn’t think you deserve to pass, it just wants to see if you do. Sometimes there is no retaking a test.”

The boy nodded, and focused on scrubbing the pans.

“But the universe also doesn’t mind if you cheat. In fact it isn’t cheating, it’s using everything at your disposal to pass the test. So I can bring the analyzer as a backup in case you get stuck if you want.”

“Will you think less of me if I want you to bring it?”

Tristan didn’t show his pleasure. The boy was interested in what Tristan thought of him—they were bonding. “Buddy, I always bring it with me when I go in the forest. I might not need it, but I want it in case I do. As I said, the universe wants you to use every tool at your disposal. I agree with that. Passing the test is the only thing that matters. Only idiots or people jealous of you will claim you did it wrong. You passed, how can that be wrong?”

“So we’ll spend the day collecting plants and come back?”

“I was thinking we could spend a few days in the forest.”

“What about Alex?”

“No, he couldn’t do it. He’s a city boy. He needs his computer to be happy.”

The boy had a small smile. “I mean won’t he wonder where we are?”

“He isn’t coming back for a few days. He wasn’t supposed to be back yesterday, but you saw the damage. It had to be fixed.” Of course, it would have been simpler for Alex to get a different hover and keep going, but Tristan had made the best of that situation.

“What if he needs it fixed again?”

Tristan placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Buddy, it’s fine if you don’t want to do it. The forest is scary, and if you don’t think you’re ready for this, we will wait.”

Instead of giving the reflexive contradiction of ‘I’m not scared, I am brave’ that far too many people would give at having their readiness to take on the universe put in question, the boy thought about it.

“I am ready, but I don’t want to leave Alex in trouble if he needs us.”

“He’s a full-grown merc. Alex can handle trouble.”

“Okay.” He hesitated. “When are we leaving?”

“You’re almost done cleaning, then we’ll pack things away, collect what we’ll need, and you’ll pick a direction.”

“Can I pick one we’ve been on before?”

“Of course.”

The boy studied Tristan’s face before getting back to scrubbing the last pan.

Tristan headed to the hold to get the things he’d need for his part of the test. Fortunately, medical injectors were small by design, since people who used them tended to do so throughout the day. They both fit in a pocket. The remote for them he powered off. From the cabinet where he kept all the drugs, he took the strongest sleep-inducer he had. He’d used the injector to control how much went in, and a stimulant powerful enough to counteract the inducer.

When he left the ship carrying a small pack with a few bags, the analyzer, a shovel, two extra knives, and his Azeru, the boy had dumped the water out of the wash basin and placed that upside down next to the cooler. The table and chairs were folded flat and stacked there too. He helped the boy pick up the rest so that once they were done, anyone looking down the clearing from space wouldn’t be able to tell there had been anyone here.

“What are you bringing?” he asked the boy.

“Nothing. I don’t need extra tools to pass.”

Tristan smiled at the misplaced confidence. “So no datapad?” The boy shook his head. “No knife?”

The boy began shaking his head, thought better of it, and ran inside his habitat. He came back out buckling the belt Tristan had made him from an old leather jacket he’d use as part of a mask. He adjusted the sheath’s position and nodded his satisfaction.

“You’re sure you don’t want to bring anything?”

“I can do this.”

“How about a blanket? Your habitat is temperature-controlled, but you’ve noticed the nights have been cool.”

“Are you bringing one?”

“Buddy, I have fur. It’s kept me warm in much colder weather.” The boy hesitated. Tristan crouched. “This isn’t about proving how tough you are. The universe doesn’t expect you to do this as if you were a merc. You’re a boy. You have limitations. Knowing them is as much a part of passing its tests as not getting sick.” He opened his pack and showed him the gun. “I’m bringing this, just in case. I don’t think I’m going to need it, but if something goes wrong, I want to have it. You should bring anything you think you might need. If you don’t need them, that’s fine, but if you do, you don’t get points taken off. The only thing of importance about the universe is that by the time the test’s over, you can look up at it, grin, and say, ‘I pass’.”

“Can I have a pack like yours?”

Tristan got him one, and he put blankets in, his datapad, and a handful of nutrient bars. Then he went in his habitat to finish packing. He came out, and it was bulging.

“Where to?” Tristan asked.

The boy picked a direction they hadn’t gone into and walked. After an hour of walking, the boy looked at him. “Shouldn’t we collect food?”

“Do you think we should? Buddy, I’m here to help. This is your test. I’m here to make sure the universe doesn’t go overboard and open the ground under you.”

“Does it do that?”

“It did it to me once, about thirty subjective years ago. I was fighting this gang of mercs who were after the same thing I’d been hired to get, and there was an earthquake. Half of them fell in, I almost did. My ship dropped down. Me and the universe had a talk after that. I’d just spent six months rebuilding that ship.”

“You and the universe talk?” The boy sounded awed.

“Well, when we get to that point, I’m usually screaming.” He looked up, trying to find a piece of the sky through the dense canopy. “While all you do is keep your mouth shut!” Tristan sighed at the boy’s chuckle. “See, I don’t mind that the universe is out to kill me. I accept that. To be fair, I’ve given it plenty of reasons to want me dead, but my ship hadn’t done anything to it. It was just being mean.”

The boy grinned. Tristan smiled. “True story, I swear.” The boy nodded in that way that meant the opposite of agreement. Tristan narrowed his eyes. “So, what are we doing now?”

The boy looked around, studied some plants, and indicated a patch for Tristan to collect while he studied more and collected some too. They kept walking until the sun was high, and they stopped in a patch of its light.

“When should I build the shelter?” the boy asked.

“How long does it take you to built it?”

“A few hours,” the boy answered, “with collecting what I’ll need.”

“And if I help?”

“I don’t know. You’ll do what I say, so it’ll still take time.”

“You want it finished, as well as the firepit, before it gets full dark, but you need to keep in mind that the canopy makes it darker faster under it.”

“So it’s best if I start early, even if it means I’ll travel less. It isn’t a race. All I’m interested in is that I stay alive, right?”

“Right. You pass the universe’s test by living.”

The boy had them walk for a couple of hours. During that time the roar of previous days came again, closer. The boy was used enough to it that he looked in the direction, but he no longer cowered. He had worked out it wasn’t coming for them.

The boy proved good at giving directions, and unlike many humans Tristan had been given the misfortune of working with, he didn’t think that his position meant he didn’t have to do any of the work. Together they had a shelter large enough for the boy built in half the time.

“Are we making one for you?”

“You saw me sleep in the trees, right?”

The boy shook his head. “I thought you slept in Alex’s tent.”

Tristan raised an eyebrow.

“You’re a little tall for it, but it’s more comfortable than a tree.”

Tristan chuckled at the image of him sneaking into the tent while Alex slept there. How he’d freak. “Buddy, comfort is relative. I’m used to roughing it, as Alex would say.”

The boy looked at the trees. “How do you climb up there?”

Tristan clenched a hand, making his claws pop out. “These make climbing trees easy.”

The boy studied them and sat back. “I did think you slept in his tent. When he said you and him were trying to figure out how to make this work, I thought he meant more than just being mercs together.”

Tristan thought about it. Would Alex really freak out if he did sneak in his tent? Considering how the human looked at him, probably not. Tristan pushed that aside. Too much of a complication. But it did raise a question.

“Does that bother you? If me and Alex were together that way?”

The boy’s face grew serious. “Does it bother your family?”

Tristan raised an eyebrow, only now remembering that little detail. At least he always had the alien angle to play. “It doesn’t. Samalians don’t view families the exact way humans do. I have my wife to have children, and I’ll only have them with her, but for the rest, we can become attached to other people.”

The boy nodded. “At the academy, they taught me that aliens don’t matter. They’re just there to help us do our work. They do what we tell them to and that’s all. They never told me about relationships, I’m just eight. But I expect they wouldn’t approve. If you’re nothing, what does it say about me if I care for some nothing?”

Tristan waited. That view was more extreme, but he’d seen variations on it on every human world he’d travel to.

“But I don’t see how that can be right. If aliens don’t matter, why do corporations hire some of them in high positions? Did you know a Jolarnian created the Kalan engine configuration? It’s allowed warships to go fifteen percent faster. How does someone who doesn’t matter, who is nothing, do that? And there are others. Various aliens have invented things we use. Not all of them are revolutionary, but it’s still impressive for someone the academy claims is nothing.”

Tristan nodded.

“As for humans and aliens sharing a tent.” He grinned. “I’m just eight. I don’t really know about that stuff.”

Tristan laughed, and the boy’s grin broadened. “You, Buddy, are a clever boy.” He dried his eyes. This was what? Twice now the boy had managed to draw honest laughter out of him? “Start digging the firepit. I’m going to show you how to start a fire without a lighter.” He went looking for the right kind of stone, and showed the boy how to strike it against the flat of the blade to make sparks. While he practiced, Tristan cut some fine shavings off a branch, and then the boy had to work out how to aim it.

Unlike most people Tristan worked with, the boy didn’t get frustrated when he failed. He studied what he’d done wrong and tried something new. Unless he was angry, Alex was also like that, using failure as a point of focus.

When the shaving caught, Tristan had him carefully add some branches, going larger as the fire caught on them.

“Are we eating now?”

“Are you hungry?”

“Just a little, but we made the fire.”

“You want your fire going early because, with the plans we have, you cook by burying your food, so you want to give it time to produce a lot of coals. If you wait until you’re hungry to start, it’s easier to get frustrated.”

“Then what do we do now?”

“You can relax.” Tristan smiled. “But you strike me as someone who likes to stay busy.” The boy nodded. “Then let’s go find water.”

“Did you bring bottles?”

“We are going to make our own.”

The boy looked at him, dubious.

They walked away from the fire, and Tristan had him listen for the sound of running water. The creek was large enough it might qualify as a river. Tristan had never bothered studying those terminologies. He tested different trees until he found one with flexible bark and cut a large patch of it. The boy watched as he cut that and shaped it into a cylinder, then coated the outside with thick mud. He had the boy practice making his own while it dried.

When it was dry, Tristan amazed him by taking water in his hands and filling the container without any of it leaking.

“By hand this would take too long, so you can use previous attempts as a scoop.” He grabbed one and scooped out water.

“But it’s leaking.”

“But there’s still more in it by the time I pour it in the container.”

The boy looked at it. “Bottles are better.”

“Fair enough. So this is going to be my water and you’ll go looking for someone who sells water?” He kept his tone light, but this was one of the attitudes that killed humans who got lost, this refusal to understand that when it came to surviving, there were no wrong methods of ensuring that. He was surprised it had taken so long for one to creep up with the boy, considering his education.

The boy looked at Tristan’s water container, then the one he’d made that looked like the mud had finally dried. “No one sells bottles in the forest,” he said, grabbing his container. “But next time I’m bringing some.” He used the scoop to fill it.

On the way back to the fire, Tristan asked more questions about his father, and the answers lined up with the other lies the boy had told. There was no wariness in the answers, but they weren’t to the point where he was willing to be truthful with him.

The fire was down and they buried the tubers. While they cooked, they used the greens and other plants to make a salad. They ate berries as dessert. They were more tart than sweet, which suited Tristan.

“Do you miss your family?” The boy poked the fire with a branch before adding more wood to it. The sun was low enough this was their only light.

“I do. You?”

The boy shrugged.

“Do you see your father often?”

He shook his head.

“Your mother?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Really?”

“My father says she didn’t want me. She abandoned me when I was a baby.”

Tristan had no way to know if that was true, but from what he knew of the mark, he didn’t think she’d had a choice in the matter. She’d been picked for the purpose of giving birth, nothing else.

“I didn’t know my mother either.”

“Really?”

“She died when I was younger than you are. I don’t remember anything about her.” Brown fur, shining in the light. Kind gray eyes looking down on him. Her, on the floor of her home, holding her sides, trying to keep the blood from flowing out. Him, reaching for her, crying her name as his father pulled him along, holding Justin in his other arm.

He was amazed at the clarity of the memories, considering he felt nothing from them. They were stills, things he could have seen in a holo frame. He’d forgotten her name, the name she’d given him. Had he ever learned the one she’d given Justin? He didn’t remember that either.

“At least you have your family.” The boy had pulled his knees to himself and sighed.

Tristan sat next to him and put an arm over his shoulder. “Hey, Buddy, don’t be like that. You’ll see your father soon. One day you’ll have a family of your own. Maybe you should go to bed. You don’t realize it, but a day of surviving like this is tiring.”

The boy nodded and entered the shelter, placing his pack to use it as a pillow. “Are you going to sleep?”

“I will in a bit. I want to keep an eye on the fire.”

“Should we put it out? Isn’t there a danger it could spread?”

“No, the way you made the pit keeps it contained, and we cleared anything that could easily burn around it. And it’s going to be your heat for the night, remember? I’m going to bank it so it’ll keep burning through the night, that way tomorrow all you’ll have to do is add wood to get it going again.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Buddy.

He listened to the boy’s breathing settle as he fell asleep.

He tried to remember his mother’s name, but nothing came. The stills were silent. He knew he’d cried her name, but not what it had been. His father had made sure he never asked about her, to the point where she’d become this ghost in his mind. Maybe he’d cared about finding her once, but by the time his father was done with him, by the time Tristan killed him and left, he hadn’t even thought about her.

Justin had been the one who hadn’t learned the lessons. He couldn’t remember anything about her, but instead of providing the comfort Tristan thought it would, it seemed to act like a hole his brother needed to fill. It had taken years for him to realize that asking only led to more and more beatings, so he had stopped, but Tristan had seen the questions in his brother’s eyes. Justin had asked Tristan about her, and he’d feigned not remembering anything. Even then he and his brother had an antagonistic relationship—his father seemed to do it on purpose—but he’d cared enough not to encourage Justin.

Knowing Justin, he’d gone looking for her the moment he’d made it out of the forest. Had he found her? Had she survived their father’s attack on her? Tristan couldn’t know. And he didn’t care.

He stood, added a few logs to the fire, and banked it so they would burn slowly. The boy was sleeping deeply now. Tristan headed in the direction he’d heard the roar as the sun set; it had been the last one.

As he stepped further from the fire, his eyesight adjusted to the low light. Everything around him became gray and almost indistinct. He’d trained himself to use the little he saw this way, but his sight was from his predatory ancestors. It didn’t care for the needs of modern times.

A small animal ran, a clear form to him. When he was younger, he couldn’t fight the instinct to chase it. A game he played, until his father decided he needed to kill. Now he no longer felt the urge. More animals fled, from him, from an actual nighttime predator there to feast. One approached Tristan, but his size discouraged it.

Bone breaking under powerful jaws. Meat being ripped. Chewing, and a sound Tristan attributed to contentment. It moved, just the head becoming clear for a moment as it lifted. It sniffed the air, gave a growl of warning, and went back to eating. He kept approaching until it repositioned itself, its kill between its front legs and facing his way, a menacing growl as it bared its teeth.

A large body, powerful shoulders, back, and haunches. This was an animal that liked to pounce. It would lie in wait in a tree until the prey came to it. He thought it could put on a chase if it had to, but it preferred to let the prey do the work. A clever predator.

He walked around it and it moved to keep him in its sight, short, quick bursts of motion that let him make out more details. Short fur, except its feet where it was longer, looking like boots. It never stopped growling now, even as it took bites out of the dead animal between its legs.

It pawed the ground, its long claws making furrows. Its tail tapped the ground behind it, the sound making Tristan think the end was large and heavy. It bit into a bone and chewed like it was nothing more than jerky. Claws, fangs, power. Those were what Tristan needed to watch for. If it managed to pin him down, it would rip him apart like it did that animal.

His advantage was surprise. It had no idea what he was. It warned him away like it would any intruding predator, but it didn’t want to abandon its meal. The forest had a version of a scavenger animal then.

He took out an injector and loaded a vial of sleep-inducer in it. He used himself as the basis, then increased the dose to take into account the animal’s extra mass. And again to counteract any natural immunity it might have. He wanted it to go down, not give him a fight, not yet. And he set it to activate the moment it adhered to the animal.

With it in-hand, he made another circuit. The shoulder was the best place for the initial injection. Short fur increased the chance of proper adherence, but even if it didn’t, what was injected would quickly make its way to the brain. He stopped moving and waited for it to decide its meal was more important than some strange animal standing still.

The moment it began biting down, he ran.

It was faster.

It was on its feet, meal forgotten, growling and running at the threat. This wasn’t a predator that scurried away. It was at the top of the food chain, and it was going to be happy to show Tristan why that was.

He smiled. It was in for a surprise.

It reared back, becoming taller than he was, and swiped at him. He dodged the blow. He couldn’t let it touch him; those claws would rip chunks out of him without it even trying. That put him too far to slap the injector on. He turned to wait for another chance, but it had no interest in making this easy. It was already pouncing at him. He threw himself to the side, rolled, and got up. He couldn’t have injuries the boy would question.

He took its momentary confusion to reassess.

If only it would give him the time. It looked at him, roared, and was on its back legs again. He expected the swipe, went low under it, and tried to slap the injector on, but it jumped out of the way, landing on all fours and turning to face him, tail lashing back and forth. Smart animal. It deserved its position as top predator here, simply not against Tristan. No one was better than he was.

It pounced at him. He threw himself to the side, was back on his feet. It was pacing now; the fight had taken them away from its meal, and it had to decide what was more important: proving its superiority, or protecting its food. Tristan backed away.

It wasn’t a thinking being. It had no need to prove anything. It just knew what it was. It continued pacing, but didn’t chase him, moving closer to its food.

He studied it, how the dead animal distracted it, how it moved. He waited for when it looked away from him and ran. He couldn’t screw this up. He wasn’t giving the universe the satisfaction of causing his own death.

It reared, swiped. Tristan went under and it began jumping. He slapped the injector against its side. As if the touch had been too much, its tail slapped him on the side too. He flew, crashed, rolled, and forced himself to his feet. Cracked ribs.

He’d gone too far. It forgot its meal, deciding Tristan was going to be tonight’s dinner. He backed away, holding his side. He didn’t turn his back on it; he’d learned that lesson in his youth. Had never understood why his father had saved him, considering he seemed intent on having him die the rest of the time.

With his ribs he couldn’t climb, not that the trees would keep him safe from it. So he needed to keep out of its way until the drug took effect. At least the injector was holding in place, so it would keep pumping it in.

He’d never tested how long different points on the body took to cause the desired effect. Now that he had Alex, he’d have to set up a series of test.

He feigned a lunge and it back away. At least he had impressed on it he wasn’t easy prey. It staggered, righted itself, shook its head in an almost human expression of confusion. It glared at him, took a step forward, and its leg folded under it. It stood again, let out a distressed mew, and staggered, then fell on its side.

It panted heavily as Tristan moved closer. It tried to growl, but it was barely a purr. Wariness crossed its eyes. He patted its shoulder. “You fought well. The universe is proud of you. Don’t worry, it’s going to be a confusing day or two, but then I’ll be gone and you can go back to ruling your forest.”

He looked up. “I survive, again.”

He found the injector. Fortunately it had fallen on its opposite side. If it had been crushed, it would have complicated things. For whatever reason, no one made an automated injector that could handle multiple drugs. He didn’t think it was because it couldn’t be done—just add multiple container locations, injections sites, and update the program to manage them. Maybe he should work on one when he got back home.

He pushed it on its back. Female, if its anatomy matched that of most carbon-based land animals. It did seem to reinforce humans’ belief that a very long time ago, one of them went about and made all the creatures in the universe. Some loved to use that to demonstrate their superiority over aliens. When they became a problem, Tristan demonstrated that even if that was true, they were not that superior.

He shaved a patch of fur on its stomach, by the leg. The injector should not hamper its mobility. He attached the sleep one there. Without fur, the adhesion was solid. Unless he turned it off, it would have to rip its skin in the process of removing it.

He located its heart, shaved a patch, and set the stimulant injector there. It might’ve been visible, but he needed the reaction to be instantaneous. He adjusted the remote frequencies on them to match, got the confirmation on the controller, and pocketed it.

He patted its shoulder again. “Rest. Soon there will be a human boy I’ll need you to terrify.”